February 21, 2011 - Eight Engines Are Better Than One

Eight Engines Are Better Than One In the late 1950s, Wernher von Braun and other rocket scientists recognized the need for a heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of sending a large payload to the Moon. They recommended building a giant rocket that combined a cluster of powerful rocket engines instead of a single massive one. The project became known as Saturn, and one of the two final variants of the Saturn rocket had its first test flight forty-five years ago this week. The Saturn IB, younger brother to the Saturn V Moon rocket, featured a first-stage cluster of eight H-1 engines, producing a total thrust of 1.6 million pounds. The AS-201 mission launched an Apollo command module on its first suborbital test flight. Later Saturn IBs tested other Apollo hardware and sent astronauts to the Skylab space station.